A Girl's Guide to Corrupting Herself
by sanctum-c
Summary: The Maiden was pure – and in remaining pure could engineer a victory over the forces of darkness. A noble victory at the cost of her own life. But did the opposite hold true? Was it possible to use the novel's themes in a perverse manner, make the text an inverted guide to corruption instead of purity? How not to wind up like the Maiden.


Tseng's words never stopping haunting Aeris.

A frustrating predicament and the latest instance of Shinra's design on her being. Or perhaps Tseng did truly have some other motive. Shinra's obsessed over what she was; Tseng seemed focused on what she might be able to do. A slim difference and a distinction not worth consideration. Giving into the company was not a route she or her loved ones would choose for her. No one else in the slums projected their own interests on to her in the way the Turk did.

The first time Tseng visited, she refused to argue or listen; instead she ran. Mom would later confirm it as the correct response – and to continue doing so if the man, no, if any of Shinra visited. Far too great a chance any of them might stop being polite and instead of persuasive words, the invitation would come at the barrel of a gun.

Despite her repeated refusals, Tseng continued to visit Sector Five at irregular intervals. He was careful to leave a gap between each intrusion – presumably hoping time was on his side. It was not and his speech felt opaque: each attempt must have unspoken caveats. To take his words at face value would be to entertain the notion there was somehow a distance between Shinra the company and Tseng the individual. Shinra might have imprisoned her, experimented on her, murdered her mother but unlike them, he had some higher ideal in mind. Tseng's words were not the company's and his invitation back into the maw of the beast sounded like a recruitment into a conspiracy of two. Or perhaps it was worse; he wanted to elevate her, wanted her to alight a pedestal for worship, both a guiding light and a saviour.

Aeris was no one's saviour. She needed some way or method to escape Shinra. Leaving the city was an obvious solution but how easy was it to survive out there and find some way to keep fed, clothed and sheltered? No clear answers; she was stuck here for now and Shinra would continue to hound her. Could she deter Tseng from revisiting and attempting to tempt her back?

Vague notions and ideas coalesced after years of development, ever since the first meeting with Tseng. He never realized each visit reinforced a need to act and every intrusion made her response more essential. A curious series of children's books provided a structure for a response. The novels had proven popular in Sector Five – an echo of a trend come and gone in the city above them. Fantastical adventures set in a world different to their own where things seemed simpler and easier to work around. In among a cast of diverse characters was a lonely, virtuous girl - always a step removed from her companions.

By the end of the series, events within the books revealed her destiny was to save the world. A world where near everything and everyone within it seemed determined to corrupt or else invalidate her potential. Her friends could flirt with various vices and relationships, but the virtuous girl abstained no matter what temptation she encountered. She endured through it - a long slog of frustrating, self-induced purity. But her decision to resist various corrupting influences was never fair, the decision never hers though she resisted with every fiber of her being. There was much mention of why she alone must refuse to fall prey to sin and the resulting catastrophe. How could she fail to heed the words of those relying on her?

Aeris would steer conversations away from the frustrating books if discussed in her friendship group. Failing that, she would ensure they avoided mentions of the Maiden. Not hard; she was seemingly never a favorite character. And yet she was familiar, the Maiden's behavior and destiny was too close an echo to what Tseng said. Had he gotten the notion from the books? Too plausible.

The Maiden was pure – and in remaining pure could engineer a victory over the forces of darkness. A noble victory at the cost of her own life. But did the opposite hold true? Was it possible to use the novel's themes in a perverse manner, make the text an inverted guide to corruption instead of purity? How not to wind up like the Maiden. If her power rested on purity than Aeris would give into corruption. The Turks spied on her – of this she was certain. Let them see her partake of sin. Let Tseng see her desecrated by her own hand.

First task. Re-read the relevant portions of each book. A difficult task; the Maiden still frustrating. She was so often beset on all sides by temptation, vices and multiple love-interests; all avoided. Aside – of course – from the singular relationship she with her almost absurd, chaste, borderline platonic 'boyfriend'. Together they skirted a thin border of temptation, certain to avoid activities until the fulfillment of her destiny – and only finding out too late they would never get the chance to try. Their friends could dally in other activities and still rally the cause to fight alongside. But not the Maiden and her boyfriend.

The Maiden made great efforts to get away from the capital city. This was with a mind to living naturally and piously. The goal was easy to sympathize with if not the reason: Aeris's reasons for wanting to leave Midgar were not for some nebulous virtue. A vast world existed outside, a whole world to see and experience. Her similarity to the Maiden would diverge thanks to her wanderlust.

To reverse the Maiden's plot and fate was to embrace the vices she resisted, all those acts deemed bad in the heavy-handed narration. A litany of sins so many characters in the books and near everyone in Midgar seemed guilty of. Aeris noted each one the Maiden encountered and successfully resisted – no matter how sensible her reasoning.

Smoking damaged the lungs. Drinking damaged the liver. Drugs addled the mind. Nudity was a blight on the soul for some reason (or was the lack of modesty?). Junk food came with implied negatives. Kissing seemed not so much a vice in and of itself, but more a gateway to something only ever alluded to in oblique terms. The Maiden seemed to understand this further vice but to Aeris it linked to the secretive whispers of the older kids.

A few of her friends in Sector Five were smokers; they hid in quieter, less trafficked areas to avoid a parent or guardian finding out. Easy to tag along with a few – much to their surprise - and ask to try. Her first cigarette; it flooded her lungs with heat and smoke and- Aeris spluttered and coughed, a friend asking hastily if she was okay. She croaked an affirmative.

Could Aeris stop here with this first vice on her list? This was already further than the Maiden ever went. Enough to corrupt her? Difficult to say. Best not to take the risk even if Tseng had not swooped in to put a stop to it. Aeris grit her teeth and endured the smoke. The habit grew more appealing over time; still faintly noxious but it did now border on the pleasurable. Oh, there were all those scary adverts of life-long smoker's lungs; the extracted organs blackened and wizened. Her goal; damage her insides, no longer be pure.

Reality got in the way months later; money grew tight at home and throwing money on cigarettes was increasingly hard to justify. No luxuries and meals carefully planned to strict budgets. The new situation forced other changes including Aeris's flower selling (her corruption seemed to have little effect on the ease with which she coaxed greenery from seemingly dead soil. The Maiden never managed anything similar, but neither did the text show her trying). If her financial situation had not been enough to kill her smoking habit, than the specifics of flower selling certainly did. At first people steered clear of the flower girl with a cigarette clutched in one hand. To her increased chagrin, Maiden-like behavior helped with sales. Her customers wanted to believe in her innocence. It seemed important to them.

A new vice; alcohol. The slum kids knew which shops would sell to those barely in their teenage years. Drinking was easier to hide and cheaper than smoking; smaller quantities still had significant effects. But not without nuisance details. Hard to balance the point where Aeris found the world was delightfully out of focus and fuzzy with when balance got tricky. Hangovers could be a side-effect of doing this, but somehow – mercifully – Aeris avoided the pain.

Drinking required longer intervals to be effective over and more precise timing to fully recover from. After she finished selling flowers for the night was among the most convenient. A drunken flower girl who slurred and used too many (the critical number seemed to be more than zero) curse words created much the same issues the smoking flower girl did. Alas, this corruption was also unsustainable; money was again a factor. Too much of what little she had was going to buying terrible tasting drinks.

Junk food was at least easier to obtain and ran a lesser risk of judgement from witnesses (and yet there was always some stranger – always male - who shook his head when she ate a burger. Aeris resisted the urge to make an obscene gesture and settled on ignoring them). But again it demanded moderation. Too easy to fill her stomach before going home for dinner and wasting the meal Mom cooked. There remained a certain amount of practicality in the bland, less than wonderful food for snacks and lunches, and this vice remained one she never gave up on. Too mild however.

Aeris's girl's guide to corruption implied something involving nudity was next. Was the issue her own (the Maiden did bathe right? She must have gotten naked in private) or someone else's?

The relevant portion of the story in question was in a later book, the Maiden lost in a dense city. There she wandered into the what amounted to Sector Six and became aghast at the notion of women flaunting their bodies dressed solely in their underwear. This was soon followed by her terror of anyone seeing her in a similar state of undress – or worse. Her sense of scandal only increased when she caught a glimpse of women wearing naught but their smiles.

In real world terms, for the former there were some classy-seeming Sector Five places offering such sights; for the latter Sector Six boasted legions of establishments willing to provide – for a steeper price. A cheaper alternative presented itself in the form of a collection of grubby magazines and battered VHS tapes the boys of Sector Five passed between them. Would one of those work for her plan? The Maiden had thought so in her ordeal. Should Aeris seek out nudity of the opposite gender? This was harder – but not impossible – to source in Wall Market. But for all the lax attitudes allowing teenage Aeris to smoke and drink, adults balked much harder at a mid-teenager seeking to see something deemed explicit.

Frustration sent her back to the open secret of those grubby magazines. She cornered one of the current owners and suggested an exchange. Aeris traded a glimpse beneath her dress for a look at one such magazine – only realizing how ill-advisedly touching the paper might be when it was too late. She grimaced and leafed through pages, the magazine's owner flushed red, his gaze never straying from her underwear. Aeris ignored him. There was an at least vague appeal to the woman on the rumpled pages and the alleged true stories. Each woman was smiling and caught in the process of removing their clothes or else sprawled, legs spread and back arched. Bodies contorted in what might might pass for ecstasy stared out of the page invitingly. But something rang false about the alleged desire the accompanying text insisted these women expressed. Aeris shivered, and walked away.

Kissing increasingly held an appeal and Aeris dwelled on certain scenes on TV during her mid-teenage years. When the couple would kiss for the first time, sometimes immaculate and elegant, sometimes in clumsy desperation. Aeris wanted to try it. Not with the boy with the magazine - he did not appeal at all. But there were other boys, some claiming experience with more than kissing. Boys who she thought about in bed before she fell asleep.

Her first kiss was less awkward than expected. So, so easy to keep moving her lips and tongue with his, to let time swirl and pass in a blur. More kissing whenever the opportunity arose, Aeris becoming more daring with her responses. Both participants moving toward increased intimacy, their hands daring to rove from safe spots (arms, should, waist) to risky (chest, lower legs, thighs, inner thighs-), each touch awakening new, intoxicating desires.

The Maiden did not know what she was missing; both Aeris's own prior exploration of her body and when she sank onto a bed with her partner, his lips kissing her skin, coaxing moans and gasps from her. Amazing. And yet, she could go still further. Slum gossip alluded to it, the notion strangely appealing. Her partner had a stupid, widening grin on his face the further down his body she kissed. The Maiden would have had a heart-attack long before a tenth of her activities.

Sex was good. Well; sex with her first partner was good. The second and third were perfectly acceptable but could not excite her in the same way. Her fourth partner was little short of amazing. At least until the first girl Aeris slept with; almost enough to make her swear off men for good. Every kiss, every coupling, every time they pleasured the other; another invisible mark on her soul, another layer of corruption.

This vice informed on selling flowers. Oh, the people seemed to want innocence, did not want the thought of a flower girl smoking, drinking or eating junk food. Probably did not like the idea of her having sex. But almost all her male customers - and several women - would still steal glances at her neckline and the split in her dress. It seemed possible to be the soul of innocence but also lean over a little more than necessary and show more leg.

The SOLDIER she dated should have been more of a risk, but the opportunity was too good to resist. A giddy glee at the extra complications of this corruption; a man theoretically allied with Tseng was assisting her plan. Irony upon irony. Zack was a regular partner for a time; they hooked up whenever he was in town on his sporadic schedule. Until one day he stopped coming back and it was some time before she let him go.

Aeris took stock once she entered the second decade of her life. How blackened was her soul now? How corrupted was she? Had she gone far enough? Impossible to say. Stopping held little appeal and there were still more vices to indulge. Loco weed was popular. But it and the harder drugs suffered the same downside in expense terms smoking and drinking did. She sampled a few but left those behind despite her dabbling.

Avalanche presented her with an opportunity impossible to resist; a way to leave the city and see the wider world. But despite her interest, past experience cautioned against taking any for a partner. Too many awkward conversations and occasions through her teenage years resulting from a run in with an ex or the ex of a current partner. And her new friends were so quickly dear to her; it would be foolish to risk the camaraderie, the almost uncaring closeness they all shared. Amusing considering the only reason she was with them at all was thanks to a base attraction - when Cloud fell almost into her lap.

Another SOLDIER. Another reinforcement of what Zack had and could have been. Similar in odd and no so odd ways; the eyes, the slang, some gestures, fragments of attitude. Different in others. Cloud was lithe and slim contrasted to Zack's bulkier physique, more open, more honest than her ex had been. Cloud was at his best when unguarded; had he not snuck out in the early hours, she would have risked slipping into his bed. Her request of a date in payment was not without unspoken implications.

But nothing had gone to plan – tagging along on a trip to Sector Seven, getting caught up with Avalanche and meeting Tifa. She was harder to resist than Cloud. Those arms - She would need a private moment. Later still, Barret's gruffness gave to reveal a more caring side beneath and he too would have been a consideration under normal circumstances. But this was not normal; she was leaving Midgar and going out into the world. The priority was to keep on moving, to see the world required they be off-limits to her. Others, in the towns and cities they visited, were not.

Aeris met an astronomer observing the night-sky at Kalm. She had slipped out, unable to doze off now she was somewhere so new, so different, where the stars were visible in the sky. The man in question was a little out from the town border and his telescope prompted an absurd innuendo-filled conversation before Aeris kissed him. They coupled on a bed of grass under the stars. A lean farm-hand took her at the Chocobo farm, her back pressed against the wall of the barn, her moans muffled by her hand. There was a bookish librarian sort Aeris met in Junon; she lived in the lower city and worked in the upper. Her conservative clothing and glasses hid a delightful lack of inhibition Aeris was quick to reciprocate in her apartment. Days later in Costa del Sol, a pretty surfer helped take her mind off of the encounter with Hojo. Aeris considered staying with her, but when Avalanche moved on, so did she. There was still so much more of the world she had not yet seen.

There was no time for a dalliance at the Gold Saucer and their subsequent visit to Gongaga reframed a particular former assumption in a new, painful light. A Cosmo Canyon elder informed she was unique in the world. Alone. Melancholy and loneliness plagued her. Nibelheim was too creepy to contemplate finding a partner there, excepting Vincent of course. Maybe not; he had his pain and his suffering – and no interest in any girls making eyes at him.

Rocket Town she spent about an hour in before leaving in a hail of gunfire; too narrow a window for anything. Despite a rocky beginning thanks to Yuffie, Wutai was far better, more relaxed and provided some delightful distractions. Aeris took particular delight in helping the woman in traditional dress she met in the Turtle's Paradise out of her clothes.

Circumstances forced a longer stay on the second visit to the Gold Saucer - in time for a theme night. The romantic events of the evening were too tempting and lead to trying to make good on her payment to Cloud at long last. He was nervous, stiff and distracted at points, only gradually opening up later. At least he joined in with the play, his decisions resulting in a disastrous plot. Still an enjoyable evening – until the awkward sting at the end.

Their travel to the lost Temple of the Ancients should have been the beginning of the end of their need to travel together and track Sephiroth. But did it have to be? Maybe for some; they had lives and loved ones to go back to. Others intended to continue their causes. Aeris could not go back – not yet. Tseng waited at the temple, mortall injured. Again she reiterated her refusal to help Shinra in its plans, tried to make clear the misguided nature of their notions about her. Impossible to not feel something though; he had been a constant through so many years. It did not look like he had much time left. They left him at the entrance and Aeris did not see him again.

After the temple collapsed in on itself, her immediate future crystallized into a single, vital goal. When she came to in Gongaga, the Planet called for her. Not the whispering, barely audible voice of her mother, nor the clear but confused voices outside the Temple, but something else entirely. Not what she would ever have expected. The knowledge the Planet imparted was clear, yet somehow evasive on what it expected of her, what duty she needed to undertake. Would clarification come later? Perhaps. For now she could not resist a call to the North and the insistent notion she alone was the one capable of this task.

The Planet had called and she responded without question. It was her duty to act. But was it truly her own thought, her own decision? Could she have refused? And if she could have, would that have been it? Would the Planet accept her decision? Could it let her stand by when there was now a risk of devastation for everyone at Sephiroth's hands? Could it change her mind if she had refused? Could the Planet puppeteer her to the right place if she did not want to go? Had it somehow influenced events to ensure she met Avalanche? Were they merely fortunate this task aligned with her own desires?

No answers. The Planet was a vast, ancient intelligence and oddly alien to her despite her connection; it did not respond to her silent questions. Her task affected every life on the Planet, the enormity of the thought hard to grasp. She wanted to save the world and so Aeris headed North. She alone could save the world and her corruption did not matter. What did the Planet care the last Cetra did in moral terms? At least her efforts had been largely fun. But nothing she did, no level of corruption would ever prevent it calling out to her, or prevented her from responding to its call.

Aeris grinned. This task was for her and her friends; not Shinra. She was not leading anyone to a brighter future. Tseng's words when she was a child still held no meaning. He had never understood her. And never would.


End file.
